Last to Know (24 page)

He recalled finding her body, the almost execution-style killing and the fact that there was no apparent psychological motive, no logical motive. Standing at the back of the small crowd he remembered Jemima’s brave ruby lipstick, the wild red of her hair, her pearls scattered on the earth.

Rossetti was with him and the two detectives eyed the mourners carefully for “strangers,” meaning anyone not obviously family or friends or in some way affiliated. It was a shock to recognize Bea, dressed head to toe in black, standing in front with the family. A black scarf was wrapped over her blond hair and she wore rose-tinted glasses that hid her eyes.

Rossetti said in Harry’s ear, “I thought she said she didn’t know Jemima.”

“The only connection Bea had to Jemima, according to her, was when she was arrested on suspicion of her murder.”

“Which Mike Leverage got her off faster than it took to spin a roulette wheel. So, why is she here?”

“Let’s ask her,” Harry said.

They stood respectfully to one side as the coffin, borne by Jemima’s father and several strong young cousins and friends, was placed at the side of the rain-soaked gap in the earth that was to be her final resting place. The priest intoned a blessing while Harry kept his eyes on Bea, who simply stood, as though transfixed, gazing through her rose-colored glasses as the young woman she claimed never to have known was buried. Only then did she look up at the detectives observing her. She walked over to them immediately and stood, her head wrapped in the black scarf, searching Harry’s eyes.

“You are wondering, of course, what I’m doing here when I didn’t even know her,” she said very quietly. “You might have forgotten, Detectives, that I was questioned about this girl’s murder. When you did that you involved me in her spirit.” She shrugged. “Whatever that is. Anyhow, I couldn’t let it just be, I had to come, I wanted to know who had done this to her. I don’t quite understand why I thought I would find the answer here, all I can tell you is I have not.” She shrugged a slender, black-clothed shoulder again. “I’m hoping you have.”

And with that she stalked away, her black ballet flats squishing through the mud. She reached the gravel path and strode off, like, Harry thought watching her, an awkward long-legged heron about to take flight.

“Y’know what?” Rossetti sank his chin into the collar of his Burberry, which in his estimation had gotten far too wet for a really good trench coat. “That young woman is fuckin’ crazy.”

Harry was watching as Bea stopped at a long black limo pulled to the side of the road. A uniformed chauffeur got quickly out and held the door for her. She disappeared inside, the door slammed, the chauffeur got back in and edged into the traffic.

“Y’know what,” Harry repeated thoughtfully to Rossetti. “You might be right. Only now she’s rich and crazy.”

They thought it best not to intrude on the family and drove back in Rossetti’s car to the precinct.

46

Rose was alone in her bedroom, curled up on the love seat by the window, a glass of wine in one hand and the TV clicker in the other. She stopped when she got to the news channel which was showing the funeral of the “murdered young woman,” as Jemima Forester had now become known. As if, Rose thought sadly, she had lost her identity along with her life. On the newscast the rain was coming down in sheets, as it was outside her own window, obscuring any view of the lake and leaving the porch awash like the deck of a ship in a storm.

On TV, somberly clad mourners were shown filing into the church, then standing by the grave to which the coffin, awash in wet flowers, was borne by sturdy-looking young men who did not flinch from their task, nor from the terrible weather. Rose’s heart went out to them, to the parents following their daughter to her final resting place, eyes cast down, putting one slow foot in front of the other. In the quick intrusive shot of the mourners standing by the hollowed-out grave, she caught sight of Harry Jordan in the back, with Detective Rossetti. Both men were bare-headed out of respect, despite the torrential downpour. With rain streaming down his face, Rose thought for a minute Harry looked as if he were crying. Then she remembered that he had known the dead girl and thought perhaps he really was crying. Harry, as she had found out, was a man with a heart under his tough cop exterior.

She sat up, shocked, though, slopping wine onto the sofa, when she spotted Bea among the mourners. She wondered if it could really be her. Surely not. But yes, she would recognize those long skinny legs anywhere, now in black tights with black flats, and that slender body now encased in a sober black coat, even though her blond hair was covered by a scarf and she was wearing tinted glasses.

Rose thought the coat looked expensive, then remembered Harry saying Bea would inherit her mother’s money, as well as the house, the burned-down one in which the mother had died, and on which no doubt Bea had claimed the insurance.

Remembering the horror of the night Jemima had been murdered right out there at the lake, and Wally and Bea being arrested, Rose wished she had the magic ability to erase time, to remove herself, remove all her family, return to the place they had been before Bea Havnel came into their lives.

She had a guilty feeling of responsibility. Even though, after she had “come to her senses” and told Bea to stay out of the Osbornes’ lives, it was she who had at first accepted her, who had become like a mother to her, without questioning what Bea might really want. Now it came to Rose like a revelation, an epiphany almost, exactly what Bea had wanted. She had wanted to be her. To be the woman who had it all: the husband, the family, the position in life, the house on the lake filled with friends. Rose understood Bea’s envy, but not her jealousy. It was too crazy.

With a little stab of worry, she took a gulp of the wine; she didn’t even taste it, her mind was so occupied with the new worry about Bea, about what she might do next. In fact, Rose suddenly knew that what she felt was fear.

She grabbed her cell phone and punched in Jordan’s number, at the same time wondering if he was still at the funeral. But this was on the six o’clock news, of course it would have been over hours ago. She heard the phone ring and ring, then the request to leave a message. Actually, that’s all Harry said. No name, no chat, simply “Leave a message.” So Rose did the same: simply her name and number, then she sat back, listening to the drumming of the rain on the porch.

Down the hall, she could hear Diz talking on his phone with a friend. The two girls had gone off for a visit with their aunt, in New York, escaping from the new chaos of their lives. Roman had gone to the movies in Boston and would stay the night with friends. Rose thought it was as if suddenly her entire family wanted to escape. Only Wally was left and he was downstairs, in the room she optimistically called the “library” because of the two tall bookcases holding the many foreign editions of Wally’s works, as well as the English-language ones, and where he sat at his computer, writing, Rose hoped, the next.

She wasn’t sure about that, though. There was a silence between Wally and herself; admittedly it had been there before the fire, before Bea came to share their lives, before Wally was arrested on suspicion of murder. Mike Leverage had told Rose not to worry; he said “a scandal” was all it was; Wally was no murderer, this would only sell more books. Right now, Rose did not care about that. She wanted her life back. Real life, the way it had been before Bea, the newly rich young woman in the expensive black coat riding in a limo to the funeral of a young woman she did not know. Again Rose asked herself why. You might have thought someone arrested on suspicion of her killing would not have shown up at her funeral.

She punched in Harry’s number again. This time he answered.

“I saw Bea,” Rose said. “At Jemima Forester’s funeral, and I asked myself why she was there.”

“The drama queen always wants to be where it’s happening,” Harry said. “I guess she misses the media attention she got when she was arrested for Jemima’s murder, probably thought they’d be interested in her again. Bea enjoys the limelight, knows how to milk it, in case you haven’t noticed that.”

“I’ve noticed now,” Rose said. “What I didn’t know was that she knew Jemima.”

“And we don’t know that she did,” Harry said. “Other than being at the scene of the murder.”

“There’s something about her that scares me,” Rose admitted. “I mean, seeing her there, all dressed up in expensive black like she was the sister or something, then stepping grandly into the waiting limo, just the way she did when she first came here, to stay with us.”

“I remember, you said ‘only for a week.’”

“It’s turned out to be a life sentence.”

Harry said, “I asked you to trust me before, Rose. Now I’m asking you again. I can’t talk about it but I want you to know we are investigating Bea and her mother. You will be the first to know if we find she’s into something she should not be.”

Rose’s first thought was drugs, and she said so.

“We’ll see,” was all Harry said, before he rang off.

47

As yet, Lacey Havnel had had no funeral; what was left of her was still wrapped in plastic in a drawer in the morgue. Now, though, it was decided she could be released.

“I guess we should call the daughter,” Rossetti said to Harry.

“She hasn’t called us, to inquire.”

“True.” Rossetti thought about that. “What kinda daughter is that, anyway, that doesn’t call to ask when she might be able to bury her mom.”

“I’d call that a bad daughter. Or maybe no daughter at all.”

“You still think maybe Bea is not Havnel’s kid?”

Harry sighed, thinking about it. “None of it makes sense,” he said, after a while. “She’s clearly daughter enough on paper to claim the bank accounts and the insurance. So Lacey Havnel’s proper daughter I guess she is.”

“Then who is the father? And where is the father?”

Harry shrugged. “Perhaps he’ll pop out of the woodwork now money is involved. That’s usually the way things happen.”

“Odd, though,” Rossetti continued on his theme. “Bea goes to the funeral of a young woman she does not know, yet never even asks about her own mom.” He looked for Harry’s reaction. Harry had always been soft on Bea and he thought he would make another excuse for her, but this time Harry did not.

“Since she hasn’t called us, I’ll call her,” Harry said. “Tell her she can send whatever funeral home personnel she chooses to pick up the body, and that she can bury her mother anytime she wishes.”

He took his cell phone and punched in Bea’s number. She answered on the first ring.

“Harry,” she said.

He was surprised; the last time they had met it had been “Detective Jordan.” “I’m calling to tell you that your mother’s body can now be released. I suggest you have the funeral home of your choice deal with it. I’ll make sure the necessary papers are available immediately.” There was a long silence. Harry raised his brows at Rossetti. “Are you there, Bea?” he asked, and was answered by a sob. This time he rolled his eyes.

“We are talking about my mother.” Bea spoke through tears. Harry thought Bea cried well.

He said, “I am sorry to sound so harsh but you are now free to take care of your mother. As I said I’ll make sure everything is dealt with at this end.”

“But I don’t know any funeral homes, I don’t know anything about funerals,” Bea said, sounding desperate.

Harry recalled seeing her just a day ago at a funeral at which she seemed very composed and to know exactly what was going on. “I’m e-mailing you the names of several in the area, all of whom are more than competent and reliable.”

“But where shall I bury her? We didn’t live here, I don’t have a church.”

Rossetti, who was listening to the conversation on the speakerphone, was now the one to roll his eyes in a “who’s she kidding” look. They all knew that basically there was little left of the mother after the fire. And “Bea” and “church” were two words that did not fit together.

“I’m sure you’ll work it out,” Harry was saying, already summoning up the names of funeral homes in the area on his computer and clicking the Send button that delivered them to Bea’s iPhone. “Good luck, Bea,” he said and heard her say “But—” as he clicked off.

“Now let’s see what happens,” he said to Rossetti.

“Now she’s got her hands on the money, y’mean.”

“I remember, at the beginning, you asked whether I thought she wanted to get rid of the mother,” Harry said.

“And?” Rossetti asked.

“I think you called it right, Detective.”

“So what do we do now?”

“We still have the knife the coroner removed from her eye, the one that belonged to Rose. As well as to Wally,” Harry added, a little more thoughtfully because Wally seemed too involved in this whole scenario for his comfort. “I think Bea killed her mother to get her hands on the money, she thought she would get away with it because of the fire.”

“You mean she thought her mom would simply burn up, no visible knife wounds.”

“Mom didn’t go away so fast, though. Bea should have pulled that knife out before she set her alight.” Harry heaved a regretful sigh. “All this is pure speculation, a stringing together of events that might or might not be true. Bea could be innocent and we are bad guys for even thinking badly of her.”

“I mean a girl who looks like that…” Rossetti added, remembering Bea’s cool blond young beauty.

Harry remembered only too well the scene at the hospital: Bea in the oversized flowered gown, her childish eagerness to please, to tell him what happened. He had fallen for it big-time, and he still was not convinced she was guilty of killing her mom.

“At least with the mom, there was a motive,” Rossetti said, thinking of the nine hundred thou in the bank account. “But what about Jemima?”

“That, we may never know,” Harry said.

48

As usual, Diz was keeping an eye on things, though this time he was not up in his tree, and this time he had a purpose. He was stalking Len Doutzer and he was doing it because he was worried about his mother, who, as Wally and the family had left for Boston, was now alone at the lake house with only him to protect her.